Friday, July 24, 2009

Middle East Awaits Deeds, Not Words, from Obama

The most recent report of the Pew Global Attitudes Project was released Thursday revealing that the world's image of America has improved significantly since Barack Obama's election. In the Middle East, only Lebanon showed substantial increase in the image of the US, while their was slight improvement of America in the other Middle East countries surveyed Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian territories. (Israel was surveyed also and there was a slight decline in the image of the US since the last survey.)

Many around world placed great hope in Obama, especially in the Muslim and Arab worlds, given his Muslim middle name (Hussein) and time living in Indonesia as a kid. And while his address in Cairo was well received,many are still waiting to see what he does. As CNI stated at the time, unless his powerful rhetoric is matched by strong action vis-a-vis Israel and Palestine, Obama's historic opportunity will be squandered.